A costly tweet

Mr. Justice Bean decided at the High Court in London earlier today to award the New Zealand cricketer, Chris Cairns, £90,000 damages in respect of comments contained in a Tweet sent in 2010 by Lalit Modi. The Tweet was 24 words long (and two of those were "the"). Experts disagreed whether 35 or 95 people had read it before a compromise agreement was reached at 65. Neither the number of words used nor the number of people who read them are determinative of what damages should be awarded. What matters is the harm caused by the accusation and the accusation here was a serious one. Still, the decision is a salutory reminder that you don't need to work hard or spend a lot of time to lose a lot of money in a libel case in the English courts. The plaintiff's lawyers are said to estimate that the costs due by Mr. Modi will come in at £1.5m.

Rangers: not entirely directionless

The overwhelmingly common theme to the reports of Lord Hodge’s ruling yesterday was that he refused to give any directions: the BBC’s “'No ruling' on Rangers administrators' Ticketus challenge”  seems pretty typical. Having read the judgment, we’re not so sure that that is a helpful summary of what is a very interesting opinion. The court seems to us to have provided a careful and useful analysis of the law and, for the administrators in the particular case, a pretty clear steer as to what they can do and guidance which they can follow (follow – no more puns, honestly).

Eloquent confusion and the incomprehensible notice: what's a landlord to do?

We recently represented the successful appellants in the case of Scott v Muir and another . Sheriff Principal Stephen’s decision ought to be required reading for anyone who advises landlords or tenants or conducts commercial property litigation in Scotland.  It sets down for the first time the essential core terms of a valid pre-irritancy warning notice served in terms of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1985 s4(2).

Update - winding up, banks, and the s127 validation order

Further to Monday's post, following detailed exchanges, the bank's legal department seem to have accepted that we were right. They unfroze the accounts this morning and they are now operating normally.

Winding up, banks, and the s127 validation order

We were instructed on Thursday of last week by a company that was being prevented from paying its staff. By Friday afternoon, and a couple of court hearings later, it could pay them but the way we got there appears to be unusual, in Scotland at least.